


If Not Now

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The middle of a revolution is as good a place as any.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Not Now

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the lovely [travelsinthetardis](http://travelsinthetardis.tumblr.com) for the [Time Petals Prompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com) Pay It Forward Promo.

Her heart beat is regular, the soft _thump-thump_ his timepiece. She’s out cold, unaware of the danger, unaware of anything really, and he supposes he should be grateful. He hisses in a breath, fingers pressing against the wound in his side. Blood seeps between his fingers, and he knows if he was just to lie down and rest for a couple of hours, he’d be right as rain, but he can’t, not with Rose unconscious next to him. He’ll have to do until the captain can get here. If he gets here at all.

Beyond the cramped room they’d taken refuge in, the city is full of the sounds of violent revolution. The whistle of tracers through the air, followed by the muffled booms of shells creep ever closer. Gunfire erupts through the city, and the red-orange flash of explosions throw jagged shadows on the grimy floor and across Rose’s face. She’s still breathing. Her hair lifts gently from where it rests on her face with every breath, and the Doctor watches as her chest rises and falls.

The building shakes in the shockwave of an explosion nearer than most, and the Doctor struggles to his feet, jaw clenched and sweat beading at his temples. Rose stirs. The building shudders again, and Rose moans. The Doctor abandons his attempts to see where the explosions are coming from–the air is full of smoke, ash, and debris anyway–and instead leans over Rose.

“Hello,” he says, when her eyes open, and she blinks at him, confusion drawing her brows together before pain makes her eyes shoot open wide and she brings a hand to the back of her head. “Took a fall you did,” he says, and gently lifts her hand from the goose-egg near the base of her skull.

“What happened?” Rose asks, and then sits up suddenly. “Where’s Jack?” The Doctor hesitated, and Rose pressed him again, “Doctor, where is he?”

“Dunno Rose, but I’m certain he’ll be along in a mo’.” He pauses, watching her intently. “You took a nasty knock to the head and I want to make sure you’re not concussed. Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?” The Doctor holds up one hand.

Rose snorts. “Three.” Then she blanches and her hand goes to her mouth. The Doctor steps back just in time. Rose retches bitterly, and then groans pitifully when she’s done. “‘M sorry,” she says, and the Doctor shakes his head. He offers her a kerchief stashed in the pocket of his denims and she wipes her mouth.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Feeling dizzy at all?”

Rose nods. “Yeah. Jus’ a bit though.” Her words slur together and the Doctor manages to catch her and ease her down onto her side before she slides off the bench.

“Reckless little thing you are,” he says fondly, stroking her cheek, then presses the back of his hand against her forehead, hoping the coolness of his skin might bring her around. Her eyelids flutter and she moans again.

“Oooo,” she says, “let’s not do that again.”

“Let’s not,” the Doctor agrees and helps her to sit up again. “Think you might be a bit concussed, I can check for sure once we get back to the TARDIS.”

“I feel a bit concussed,” Rose admits, trying gamely for a smile. Another blast shatters the air, and Rose flinches violently. The Doctor pulls her into his uninjured side, wraps an arm around her shoulders and wishes he’d thought to bring his coat. He wonders where the hell Jack is.

“Where’s Jack, Doctor?” Rose asks again, and as if the thought of him conjures his spectre, the captain is there in the doorway.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he says, with a grin at Rose. His gaze flicks to where the Doctor is pressing a hand against his side, but at the Doctor’s curt headshake doesn’t say anything. “And how’s revolution treating you, Rosie?” The captain helps Rose to her feet, putting a steadying arm around her when she stumbles into his side.

“I am a bit concussed,” Rose enunciates carefully and the Doctor gets a breath of his warning out before she slides to the floor, Jack sinking down with her.

The captain looks up from the floor with Rose in his lap.

The Doctor shrugs. “She’s hit her head, need to get her back to the TARDIS.”

“I can carry her,” Jack says looking down at Rose, “or I can carry you,” Jack looks at the Doctor’s wound pointedly, “but I can’t carry you both, and she’ll be no help flying the TARDIS.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrow. “No. You go, take Rose, the TARDIS will help you.”

“She’ll be safe here,” Jack says, getting up from the floor and lifting Rose in a smooth movement. He places her gently on the bench she’d been lying on before and rolls her onto her side. “We’ll be back before she knows it. The TARDIS is only a couple of blocks away. Tried there first, and then when I didn’t find you, came here.”

“I said no. Take Rose. Go.” The Doctor’s voice is clipped and harsh, but Jack doesn’t back down. The two men stare each other down, interrupted only when Rose comes to again.

“Stop deciding whose is bigger and someone go and get the TARDIS,” she grouses, as she rolls to a sitting position, holding her head in her hands. “My bloody head aches.”

The Doctor heaves himself to his feet again, and that’s when Rose notices his injury. “Doctor,” she says, voice soft and scared, “you’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing Rose, just a scratch.” Rose raises an eyebrow but the Doctor matches it with a placid look of his own, as if daring her into further comment.

There’s a whistling in the air over their heads and Jack’s shout of “Down!” is probably what saves all three of them. Rose drops to the floor like she’s been shot and both the Doctor and Jack dive to cover her. The shockwave ruffles the Doctor’s hair and the heat that follows singes the back of Jack’s coat. The blast flattens the building they’re in around them, and when the air finally clears, Rose’s ears are ringing and she can feel pebbly grit covering her from head to toe. The Doctor and Jack are deadweights on top of her, and she wriggles under them, trying to get free.

Jack gasps awake, and rolls off her onto his back, breathing hard but rhythmically like he’s trying to get himself under control.

“Rose? Honey, you okay?” He asks when he sees her watching him, but Rose can’t hear him yet. She motions to her ear and then grabs his hand. Together, in the deadened world of eardrums almost blown, they roll the Doctor over and off her legs.

All around them, the sky is on fire. Bits of ash and stone rain down, and Jack drapes his coat over Rose’s shoulders. Her throat is on fire, like the time she accidentally inhaled some of her mum’s mace when Jackie was showing her how to use it. Tears stream down her face unchecked, trying to clear dust from her vision. She shakes her head and it swims, so she stops.

Jack makes motions with his hands to indicate that they need to get out of here, and Rose shakes her head again. The room turns in a dizzying spiral, and she nearly gives up whatever’s left in her stomach. Jack looks exasperated, and Rose points at the Doctor, unconscious beside her. She won’t leave him.

The Doctor chooses that moment to come round, and Rose leans over him, smiling into his face. The Doctor’s smile is slow to come forward, but when it does, it’s the unguarded one she never sees unless they’re alone. He cups her cheek in his hand and draws her down.

The kiss is life-affirming, and it tastes like ash and soot and concrete dust. Rose hums against his mouth, and the Doctor’s fingers curl into her hair. It lasts forever, and not long enough because before she knows it Jack is tapping her on the shoulder. He’s grinning, but tapping his wrist and Rose rolls her eyes before she gets to her feet.

Between the two of them, they get the Doctor back on his feet, and the three of them stumble away from the wreckage of the building. The TARDIS is, as Jack had said, only a few blocks away, but Rose is so grateful when they get inside and find the medbay right next to the console room.

Her hearing is starting to come back by the time Jack gets the Doctor stitched up, having dug bits of shrapnel out of his side while the Doctor holds Rose’s hand the whole time. Jack leaves them in the medbay to shower the dust out of his hair, admonishing them to behave, but the wink and flamboyant salute leave Rose stifling laughter and he’s barely out of the room before the Doctor is kissing her again.

“Let’s not get blown up anymore,” Rose says against his lips, and the Doctor pulls back to look at her. His eyes soften, and he rests his forehead on hers.

“Yeah, let’s not,” he agrees, and Rose kisses the grin off his face.


End file.
